1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to forms such as HTML based forms served and processed by Internet and World Wide Web (WWW) sites.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Internet is widely used as a means for conducting business, personal and commercial. In fact, Internet commerce has become increasingly popular as WWW sites are continually developed for every imaginable purpose. A standard technique for conducting business or otherwise communicating information over the Internet and WWW is the use of WWW site registration forms which may be filled in with necessary fielded information. The completion and submission of such a form is often required before goods and services may be accessed, sold, distributed, etc. Such forms serve as the mechanisms to automatically exchange information among trading partners, network users, etc. Most forms require standard information, such as name, address, etc. related to a network user or transaction. As such, an Internet user often must re-type the same information at different WWW sites. And, with increased Internet use, a significant amount of time is wasted typing field values over and over again while accessing WWW sites. This redundancy of data entry present problems that reduce network efficiency.
Very few techniques have been proposed to squarely address the aforementioned data redundancy problems associated with having to re-type or re-enter WWW site form field values. One such technique is to save the values from a specific WWW site so that if that exact form is revisited, then the information may be repeated. This technique is only useful if a specific WWW site is used repeatedly and not useful for the wide use of different sites across the WWW.
Thus, there exists a need to provide new and improved systems and methods to facilitate form field entry that may be incorporated into modern WWW sites, web browsers, etc. Such systems and methods must permit easy and efficient form field entry. To be viable, such systems and methods must be implemented without causing significant burdens to network infrastructures or undue increases in infrastructure costs.